Ford boss is Byers' man

The boss of Ford who steered the company through thousands of job losses at Dagenham is to oversee the rebuilding of Railtrack.

Ian McAllister, 56, the carmakers' UK chairman, comes to the job with a reputation of being "very determined ... and tenacious to the point of being a bit of a bully."

The choice of Transport Secretary Stephen Byers, Mr McAllister is, however, a skilled tactician. He kept Ford running without strike action despite the run-down of car production and the loss of thousands of jobs at the Essex site.

He did this by keeping in very close contact with the workforce. While they vehemently opposed the closure, the workforce treated him with respect. Their redundancy deals were among the best ever.

Mr Byers is planning that the successor body to Railtrack be a notforprofit company and he believes it needs a "hard" man to provide the necessary leadership.

Exactly what role Mr McAllister will play is not yet clear. He has not resigned from Ford though he is expected to issue a statement shortly. A Ford spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mr McAllister worked through very turbulent times at Ford with plummeting profits and accusations of racism at the Dagenham plant.

A close colleague at Ford said: "He is a very determined figure and likes to get things done.

"He is very much customer orientated and had very good relations with all the dealers. He is tenacious to the point of being a bit of a bully."

The colleague added: "To put it bluntly he will cut the crap and certainlydoesn't suffer fools gladly." Mr McAllister, married with three sons and a daughter and awarded the CBE in 1996, was in the running to take over the chairmanship of the Strategic Rail Authority.

The post went to Richard Bowker, cochairman of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Trains. Another colleague of Mr McAllister said: "He's had to deal with massive problems at Ford and if anyone can deal with the mess the railways are in it is him."

Stuart Francis, head of the national rail passengers' watchdog, said Mr McAllister's lack of rail expertise does not matter.

But Chris Garnett, chief executive of East Coast mainline operators GNER, said the Government's priority should be finding a new chief executive for the existing Railtrack company rather than filling the role for its successor.

Mr Garnett said: "Performance is drifting, morale is low.

"There's a tremendous challenge to be done in getting the railways to run reliably and if Railtrack starts to go wrong we are all in trouble."

An industry source said: "Mr McAllister has a proven business background and at least he is not from the City and under the influence of the Treasury."